Combing it with his fingers, he replied, “Over the summer. Like it?”
“Love it.”
Watching Livy flirt with her professor made me want to vomit. Had she no shame? I was beginning to think Nick was a figment of her imagination. How could she be so flirty with Henry if she had a boyfriend? How could she prance around naked in front of other boys if she was truly in love? No wonder I couldn’t be a hippie freak.
Chip appeared at the lip of the stage. “Come on. Get yourself together. It’s really a drag. Every time we begin a set, we have to ask you to come down. If you go up there for attention, I’m sure you could throw yourself somewhere else and get the same effect. So if youplease, leave the towersnow, andstay offthe towers!”
“Look behind you,” Leon said, tugging on my sleeve.
I turned around to see, yet again, a barrel of monkeys tangled between metal poles like it was a jungle gym. “What’s their problem?” I asked him. “I feel bad for Chip Monck. This has to be getting old.”
Leon shrugged. “Some people are just selfish.”
Yeah, and the blonde I came with tops the list.
Woodstock
Day Two
Saturday, August 16, 1969
10:30 p.m.
After the crew had spent time shuffling gear on and off a giant turntable in the middle of the stage, the Grateful Dead appeared. Over the weekend I’d overheard conversations about Jerry Garcia. People talked about him as if he was a demigod. I couldn’t wait to find out what all the hype was about.
Since darkness had fallen, I didn’t notice the clouds sneaking in. When the wind picked up, so did my angst. I looked around at folks standing near me. Hair was blowing around their faces. Their shirttails looked like they might catch sail. A gust caught my pink top and blew it straight up as high as my chin.
The canvas top over the stage undulated with the wind as it whipped through Woodstock as fiercely as a lion’s roar. Not five minutes later, the skies opened. With no warning whatsoever, a gully washer returned, falling much harder than it had the night before.
Yet again, I was soaked to the bone.
The rain blew onto the stage. Jerry Garcia looked at the water pooling underneath his feet and gave the cute guitar player to his lefta horrified look. Their giant light show screen, hanging above them, flapped like a sailboat caught in a mighty wind. Someone climbed up and slashed it right as some crazy dude ran onto the stage and flung LSD pills into the audience. If we hadn’t been seated so close, I would have missed the whole thing. I thought back to all the warnings about the poisonous acid and wondered why in the world this guy was allowed on the stage in the first place.
Fifteen minutes into their annoyingly slow first song, Livy turned around to the people behind her with hands pressed into her hips and a rageful stare.
“Stop talking!” she yelled, even though she couldn’t have possibly heard anyone over the music. “People are trying to hear the band.” With that she turned back around, crossing her arms over her chest like she was mad as hell.
I’d never seen her act that way. Her sudden mood change came out of nowhere. Swallowing my growing resentment, I stood up, put my arm around her. “You okay, Liv?”
She shook her head from side to side for what seemed like a full minute, then pointed frantically at the stage. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” I asked. She didn’t answer, so I got in front of her face and asked again. “Smellwhat?”
“The flowers!” Her smile warned me that her mood had flipped again. I had to get next to her face to hear what she was saying, because the music muffled her voice. “Aren’t they beautiful?” She pushed me aside and thrust a hand toward the stage, seemingly picking flowers—one by one—until she had formed a bouquet. “Gardenias. My favorite.” She dipped her nose inside the bouquet, then handed the thing to me.
“There are no flowers,” I shouted over the music, with rain dripping off my nose.
She ignored me. “Look at the red wine bubbling from the stage!” With a wide-open mouth, she leaned her head back. Her jaw moved, like she was guzzling it down her throat. Or so she imagined. She startedsinging something familiar, but the music drowned out her voice. Then tears sprang into her eyes. Seconds later she wailed like a grieving widow.
Einstein may not have been my last name, but I knew what was happening. I turned around and peered desperately at Leon. He’d been watching the whole affair. “After all the announcements?” I said. “Tell me she’s not that stupid.”
He shrugged.
“For a Harvard student, she has no common sense.”
“Wait a second. Livy goes toHarvard?”
“Well, Radcliffe.”
